There’s often an ache in my neck and shoulders, tension that sometimes extends into pain. I’m sure part of it is due to extended hours in front of a computer with lazy ergonomics. But at a deeper level, I feel I’m being weighed down by my yoke of performance in trying to meet my own heavy-handed expectations of how I should function in this world and what I need to achieve to be acceptable.
In an introspective inventory of my desires, it’s revealed that most of them have to do with desiring rest, refreshing, support, connection. How I tend towards living – with my long to-do lists and a nagging anxiety of whether or not I’m measuring up – proves to be exhausting. It separates me from the very people I’m hoping to please. I’m running hard towards the things I want, but instead it drives me towards more heaviness and separation.
“Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis. Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in me. For all that I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear.”
The words of Jesus.
Nothing about trying harder. Nothing about working longer hours or imposing harsh regulations or trying to fix other people. Just an invitation to step into Living Water, to refresh and rest, to join and be a part of a life, The Life.
Nothing about hustling or winning. Just gentleness, humility, contentment.
“For all the I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear.”
An exhale, a picture of me as a little kid dropping off my backpack at the feet of my Helper. A backpack that I filled with heavy bricks of worry and anxiety that hurt my shoulders, weighed me down, exhausted me. Dropping this off and skipping off to live freely and lightly, the beautiful privilege of a child of God.
“Leave all your cares and anxieties at the feet of the Lord, and measureless grace will strengthen you.”
Me, as adult me, stepping into an education of what it means to be a vine to the Branch. To surrender instead of strive. To lean in and trust that in my coming and going, in my working and resting, in company and in solitude, Christ is trustworthy and enough. To be led quietly by the Spirit, to discern what is needed and what should be let go. He is never wrong.
A pause in the education of the world – endless books, blog articles, Youtube videos – telling me how to do life better. Perhaps the answers are within me, within Him. That in this quiet inner searching, there is more listening, tapping in, seeking, and finding of the One who requires that which is pleasant and easy to bear.
Sindy Hankins 